Posts For: November 24, 2013

The more you read about Syria, the worse it looks for the Obama administration. In its weekend edition, the Wall Street Journal has a long article exploring what happened when the Syrian regime used chemical weapons on a massive scale on August 21, killing an estimated 1,400 people.

The article reveals that the White House not only refused to provide arms to the rebels but it even refused their requests for protective equipment to deal with chemical weapons attacks:

The more you read about Syria, the worse it looks for the Obama administration. In its weekend edition, the Wall Street Journal has a long article exploring what happened when the Syrian regime used chemical weapons on a massive scale on August 21, killing an estimated 1,400 people.

The article reveals that the White House not only refused to provide arms to the rebels but it even refused their requests for protective equipment to deal with chemical weapons attacks:

Syrian opposition leaders made their first formal appeal to the U.S. for protection from chemical weapons back in June 2012. At a meeting in Washington, opposition representatives handed administration officials a request for various nonlethal supplies, including 2,500 gas masks, say people who attended….

White House advisers, they say, questioned whether the masks would make much of a difference. Some worried that if Islamic extremists in the opposition got their hands on them they might try to seize poison gas from the regime. Administrative lawyers worried about potentially running afoul of domestic and international law.

“It was never ‘no.'” says one opposition representative about what would become a series of requests. “But it would never happen.”

This is shameful and bizarre. None of the reasons the White House gave for refusing to provide gas masks, etc., stand up to much scrutiny–especially when the administration was already ostensibly committed to providing non-lethal supplies to the opposition. This was simply inertia and foot-dragging, all a result of the fatal ambivalence and irresolution in the Oval Office.

When Assad’s goons stepped up their use of chemical weapons, Obama was briefly spurred into contemplating tougher action, before just as quickly backing off, and seizing a face-saving Russian offer to destroy the Syrian chemical-weapons stockpile. The Journal article reports: “U.S. intercepts show a Russian official later boasting to a Syrian counterpart about how easy it had been to get the U.S. to back off strike plans.”

Given Obama’s mishandling of Syria, it is a shame that Republicans have let him off the hook–first by not coalescing around a tough-minded position (how could the GOP knock Obama for being soft while refusing to endorse air strikes?), and then by changing the subject to the completely unnecessary and unproductive government shutdown. The tragedy of an irresolute and weak U.S. foreign policy is compounded by the tragedy of an equally weak and irresolute opposition party, which doesn’t know where it stands on foreign policy. It tells you something that the most devastating critique in recent days of the Obama foreign policy has been delivered by a member of the Saudi royal family who aptly summed it up as “just complete chaos. Confusion. No policy.”

At the Halifax Security Forum over the weekend, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel laid out a new Arctic strategy for the U.S. military. The need for such a strategy is obvious given that the Arctic’s copious natural resources and fast routes for maritime travel are ready for exploitation because of the melting of the polar ice caps. If the U.S. doesn’t act to protect its interests, other nations such as Russia will seize the initiative.

Hagel is right to call on the U.S. armed forces to be ready to preserve freedom of navigation, defend Alaska, and to ensure the safety of efforts to operate in the Arctic environment. The question left unanswered is: How will we pay for this expanding mission?

At the Halifax Security Forum over the weekend, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel laid out a new Arctic strategy for the U.S. military. The need for such a strategy is obvious given that the Arctic’s copious natural resources and fast routes for maritime travel are ready for exploitation because of the melting of the polar ice caps. If the U.S. doesn’t act to protect its interests, other nations such as Russia will seize the initiative.

Hagel is right to call on the U.S. armed forces to be ready to preserve freedom of navigation, defend Alaska, and to ensure the safety of efforts to operate in the Arctic environment. The question left unanswered is: How will we pay for this expanding mission?

Sequestration isn’t going away anytime soon. Combined with previous budget cuts, this will result in a trillion dollars being sliced from the defense budget over the next decade. U.S. military capabilities will decline by at least a third. But U.S. military missions aren’t declining at all. They are growing. In addition to Arctic operations, the U.S. armed forces are stepping up cyber and space commitments, among others.

As I have repeatedly written, there is a growing mismatch between commitments and resources. It is not reasonable to expect the U.S. armed forces to do 30 percent more with 30 percent less money. Yet that seems to be what Washington wants. Unless Congress coughs up more money, and fast, the result will be a readiness crisis to recall the “hollow” days of the 1970s.

As Americans reflected on the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Iranian government—now depicted as having moderated by journalists taken in by President Rouhani’s charm offensive—showed its true colors.

Press TV, Iran’s official English-language propaganda outlet, published an article by an American 9/11 revisionist arguing that Israel “called the shots” from the grassy knoll:

Israel and its global Zionist crime syndicate were major players if not THE main player in the JFK assassination – must be taken seriously. Israel had a powerful motive… Ben Gurion haughtily refused to answer JFK’s letter demanding that Israel abandon its nuclear aspirations. Instead, he resigned. Six months later, JFK was publicly executed. A few years after that, Ben Gurion got his nuclear weapons… and his longed-for war of aggression to steal Jerusalem.

As Americans reflected on the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Iranian government—now depicted as having moderated by journalists taken in by President Rouhani’s charm offensive—showed its true colors.

Press TV, Iran’s official English-language propaganda outlet, published an article by an American 9/11 revisionist arguing that Israel “called the shots” from the grassy knoll:

Israel and its global Zionist crime syndicate were major players if not THE main player in the JFK assassination – must be taken seriously. Israel had a powerful motive… Ben Gurion haughtily refused to answer JFK’s letter demanding that Israel abandon its nuclear aspirations. Instead, he resigned. Six months later, JFK was publicly executed. A few years after that, Ben Gurion got his nuclear weapons… and his longed-for war of aggression to steal Jerusalem.

Those who see the Zionists as prime movers in the JFK assassination argue that none of the other anti-JFK factions had such an overpoweringly existential motive, nor a track record of such wildly reckless deception and violence. Without Zionist involvement, the U.S. military, CIA, and organized crime might have pushed back against JFK using gentler means.

Were the Zionists really in a position to set the JFK assassination wheels in motion? Skeptics argue that Israel is just a tiny entity of eight million people, so it is preposterous to imagine that it is dominating the U.S. empire or steering history. Yet the facts are otherwise: The tiny Zionist entity of eight million people, together with its millions of fanatical loyalists all over the world, clearly dominates U.S. foreign policy, and has done so since the murder of JFK.

The whole thing is noxious hate, but it is true to the ideology and conspiracy theories which Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Rouhani, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif endorse. Perhaps President Obama will congratulate himself on the temporary nuclear deal, but there should be no naïveté about the regime which he now treats as a diplomatic partner.

It seems like only yesterday that gullible commentators were welcoming the ascension of Stalinist prince Kim Jong-un in North Korea and claiming he would inaugurate a new era of openness. There has since been scant evidence of change–and to the extent that there has been change, it has generally been for the worse.

The latest sign of just how despicable this regime is? The detention of an 85-year-old American, a Korean War veteran named Merrill Newman, who was hauled off his airplane as he was about to leave the North at the end of a tour. His family has no idea why he was arrested. They don’t even know if he has received the drugs he needs to keep him alive, which they have sent via the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang.

It seems like only yesterday that gullible commentators were welcoming the ascension of Stalinist prince Kim Jong-un in North Korea and claiming he would inaugurate a new era of openness. There has since been scant evidence of change–and to the extent that there has been change, it has generally been for the worse.

The latest sign of just how despicable this regime is? The detention of an 85-year-old American, a Korean War veteran named Merrill Newman, who was hauled off his airplane as he was about to leave the North at the end of a tour. His family has no idea why he was arrested. They don’t even know if he has received the drugs he needs to keep him alive, which they have sent via the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang.

Even by North Korea’s barbaric standards, this is pretty cruel and shocking behavior. Moreover, it makes little sense from the standpoint of a regime that would like to encourage tourism to keep a small pittance of hard-currency earnings flowing.

It’s impossible to say why the North Koreans detained Newman. But it’s obvious that this is yet another sign of a hard-line regime that will never voluntarily liberalize on its own, at least not under Kim Jong-un’s leadership.

While Iranian Jews have traditionally had it better than some of their religious brethren in Arab lands, the situation for the Iranian Jewish community since the Islamic Revolution has been precarious. The community may number as much as 20,000 now, but that represents less than a fifth of the community’s numbers before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return.

While traditionally Iranians treated Jews relatively well, the notion that Persia and Iran were havens for the Jewish community is nonsense. I’ve previously outlined some excellent histories of the Iranian Jewish community, here and here, for example, while noting the unresolved problem of Iran’s missing Jews, seized and imprisoned, but apparently never formerly charged and certainly never released.

In the past week, however, there have been worrisome signs inside Iran. First, the Jewish representative in Iran’s parliament (a seat is always set aside for one Jewish representative; whomever takes the position is widely despised and treated as collaborating with an oppressive regime) was trotted out to attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Fars News Agency described the representative’s speech on Wednesday:

While Iranian Jews have traditionally had it better than some of their religious brethren in Arab lands, the situation for the Iranian Jewish community since the Islamic Revolution has been precarious. The community may number as much as 20,000 now, but that represents less than a fifth of the community’s numbers before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return.

While traditionally Iranians treated Jews relatively well, the notion that Persia and Iran were havens for the Jewish community is nonsense. I’ve previously outlined some excellent histories of the Iranian Jewish community, here and here, for example, while noting the unresolved problem of Iran’s missing Jews, seized and imprisoned, but apparently never formerly charged and certainly never released.

In the past week, however, there have been worrisome signs inside Iran. First, the Jewish representative in Iran’s parliament (a seat is always set aside for one Jewish representative; whomever takes the position is widely despised and treated as collaborating with an oppressive regime) was trotted out to attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Fars News Agency described the representative’s speech on Wednesday:

“We Iranian Jews condemn the spiteful, brazen, warmongering and unrealistic statements of Netanyahu, and reiterate that neither him (Netanyahu) nor any other alien has the right to meddle in Iran’s affairs,” [Siamak] Marreh Sadeq said, addressing an open session of the Iranian parliament on Wednesday. “The Zionist regime’s prime minister with its long track record of crime, occupation, assault, savagery and manslaughter cannot comment on Iran’s international conditions or the global peace or the relations of the monotheist Iranian nation with other world countries,” he said.

Then, Iranian officials trotted out members of the Iranian Jewish community to collectively demonstrate in favor of Iran’s negotiating position. “Jews from all Iranian Jewish communities, especially from Tehran, will take part in this gathering to show their solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s stances in the recent talks, specially the issues proposed to Group 5+1,” Marreh Sedq announced, also on Wednesday.

When Iran displays its remaining Jews as props—spontaneous and voluntary demonstrations are rare in Iran, and limited to opposition to the regime—there is an implicit threat that if they do not participate, jobs, education, and housing are at stake, as could be their very freedom. Jews, along with Baha’is, have, as minorities, long been the canary in the Iranian coal mine. The West should not miss the message: We have 20,000 hostages. Such are the tactics of an untrustworthy regime, not a friendly or sincere partner.

One of the more disappointing aspects of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent Iran diplomacy is the willingness to sacrifice allies for the sake of ephemeral diplomatic deals, and the willingness to reward intransigence with concessions, all the while believing that incentive brings flexibility rather than contempt.

The Obama administration—or at least its chorus—has been particularly noxious in addressing criticism. Rather than addressing argument with argument, it has sought too often to smear those who disagree with the president or distrust Iranian motives. Hence, Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen smeared the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s Mark Dubowitz, suggesting that he acted on the instruction of Israel. Ali Gharib, a prolific tweeter and one-time “Open Zion” editor whom Peter Beinart lamented had been spuriously accused of anti-Semitism, implied that congressional opposition to Obama’s policy on Iran was because Israel controlled Congress. Then again, as many defenders of Chuck Hagel suggest, perhaps attributing opposing views to dual loyalty is not really anti-Semitic after all.

Perhaps it would be comforting for those slurred to believe that such behavior is simply the domain of the Obama administration, or motivated by disdain for Israel in certain policy circles. The problem is larger, however. It is a theme I explore in my forthcoming book, Dancing with the Devil, a study of a half century of U.S. attempts to engage rogue regimes and terrorist groups. It is not limited to the resentment with which Israel is treated as it dissents, nor did such practices start in 2009, when Obama took office.

One of the more disappointing aspects of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent Iran diplomacy is the willingness to sacrifice allies for the sake of ephemeral diplomatic deals, and the willingness to reward intransigence with concessions, all the while believing that incentive brings flexibility rather than contempt.

The Obama administration—or at least its chorus—has been particularly noxious in addressing criticism. Rather than addressing argument with argument, it has sought too often to smear those who disagree with the president or distrust Iranian motives. Hence, Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen smeared the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s Mark Dubowitz, suggesting that he acted on the instruction of Israel. Ali Gharib, a prolific tweeter and one-time “Open Zion” editor whom Peter Beinart lamented had been spuriously accused of anti-Semitism, implied that congressional opposition to Obama’s policy on Iran was because Israel controlled Congress. Then again, as many defenders of Chuck Hagel suggest, perhaps attributing opposing views to dual loyalty is not really anti-Semitic after all.

Perhaps it would be comforting for those slurred to believe that such behavior is simply the domain of the Obama administration, or motivated by disdain for Israel in certain policy circles. The problem is larger, however. It is a theme I explore in my forthcoming book, Dancing with the Devil, a study of a half century of U.S. attempts to engage rogue regimes and terrorist groups. It is not limited to the resentment with which Israel is treated as it dissents, nor did such practices start in 2009, when Obama took office.

In 1993, the Clinton administration was engaged in a full-court press to engage North Korea which at the time was, much like today, threatening its neighbors and pushing ahead with a covert nuclear program. Whereas the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations had long coordinated with Seoul, South Korean warnings and its incessant urging of caution antagonized American diplomats who did not want South Korea’s analysis of North Korean politics, intentions, and diplomatic strategy to get in the way of a deal. When South Korean President Kim Young Sam tired of having his concerns dismissed or, even worse, belittled by diplomats who could not speak Korean and considered themselves experts on the region after just months on the job, complained to journalists that North Korea was leading America on and manipulating negotiators “to buy time,” the State Department was furious. When he repeated his criticism the following year, Clinton blew his top. In hindsight, of course, the South Koreans were right.

The goal of diplomacy should never be to reach a deal; rather, it should be to solve the problem. Alas, diplomats and presidents in search of a legacy often refuse to see the forest through the trees. They single-mindedly focus on getting to yes regardless of whether the cost of the deal outweighs the benefit. When evidence about an adversary’s behavior or intentions threatens forward diplomatic momentum, there are two possible actions: good presidents recalibrate policy to reflect the reality of an adversary. Bad presidents ignore evidence and slander those presenting it. Obama and Kerry appear intent on securing their legacy, although probably not in the way they intended.

As I wrote earlier this morning, the deal that President Obama has struck with Iran has very little chance of actually stopping them from reaching their nuclear goal. Their centrifuges remain intact and will, at best, delay them from “breaking out” to full nuclear capability by a few weeks. It will reward them for a decade of lies and deceptions and effectively normalize a rogue regime that continues to sponsor international terrorism and spew anti-Semitism while also starting the process of unraveling sanctions. But to all this Secretary of State John Kerry has what he thinks is a devastating answer: what’s the alternative?

The point of this question is to not-so-subtly imply that the only other choice was a war that no one wants. But this favorite rhetorical device of the president’s in which he poses false choices is a deception. There was an alternative to surrendering to Iran’s diplomatic demands that we effectively recognize their “right” to enrich uranium and scrapping the president’s campaign promise that his goal was to force it give up its nuclear program–and it didn’t mean war. All it required was for him to tighten sanctions and enforce them to the point where Iran’s elites, rather than the common people, started to feel the economic pain. But by wasting five years during which he opposed sanctions, stalled on their enforcement and then started to scale them back at the first hint of an Iranian willingness to negotiate, the president has discarded all of America’s leverage.

As I wrote earlier this morning, the deal that President Obama has struck with Iran has very little chance of actually stopping them from reaching their nuclear goal. Their centrifuges remain intact and will, at best, delay them from “breaking out” to full nuclear capability by a few weeks. It will reward them for a decade of lies and deceptions and effectively normalize a rogue regime that continues to sponsor international terrorism and spew anti-Semitism while also starting the process of unraveling sanctions. But to all this Secretary of State John Kerry has what he thinks is a devastating answer: what’s the alternative?

The point of this question is to not-so-subtly imply that the only other choice was a war that no one wants. But this favorite rhetorical device of the president’s in which he poses false choices is a deception. There was an alternative to surrendering to Iran’s diplomatic demands that we effectively recognize their “right” to enrich uranium and scrapping the president’s campaign promise that his goal was to force it give up its nuclear program–and it didn’t mean war. All it required was for him to tighten sanctions and enforce them to the point where Iran’s elites, rather than the common people, started to feel the economic pain. But by wasting five years during which he opposed sanctions, stalled on their enforcement and then started to scale them back at the first hint of an Iranian willingness to negotiate, the president has discarded all of America’s leverage.

Kerry’s assumption and that of others who advocated appeasement of Iran is based on the idea that it was not reasonable or realistic for the West to demand that Iran dismantle its nuclear program as the president demanded in his foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney last year. They say that asking for the dismantling of the centrifuges that will continue to spin and enrich uranium even after the president’s deal is in place was just too much, as was the demand that the nuclear facilities that are openly discussed and covered in the deal (as opposed to the secret underground Iranian nuclear facilities that even the New York Times concedes that the CIA, the Europeans, and the Israelis believe exist) be decommissioned or that its stockpile of enriched uranium be shipped out of the country.

Why were these demands unrealistic? Because the Iranians said they were.

That’s it. The entire foundation of this agreement isn’t a matter of what was technically feasible or even a belief that the sanctions weren’t working or couldn’t be tightened to the point where the Iranian economy could collapse. Everyone knows that the sanctions are hurting, but if Iran’s oil trade was subjected to a complete embargo (as a third round of sanctions that Congress was considering would have done), Tehran could have been brought to its knees.

If the Iranians had been pushed harder and sooner and had they believed that there was a credible threat of force on the table from the United States, which was clearly not the case, they might have been convinced that they had no alternative but to give up their nukes. But for five years, President Obama has been signaling not only that they needn’t fear him but also that he was willing to settle for far less than the demands he had been making in public. We don’t know for how long the administration has been conducting the secret diplomatic talks with Iran or whether they were run by Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett. But it’s apparent that Washington’s assumption that it couldn’t make the ayatollahs give up their nuclear toys was a self-fulfilling prophecy. By refusing to push them harder and by showing their willingness to accept far less than the minimum that would have ensured that a weapon was not possible, they gave the Iranians the confidence to stick to their positions in the talks.

So what Kerry and other administration apologists are doing is turning the question of alternatives on its head. Instead of falsely implying that the only alternative to appeasement was war, he should be called to account for not exploring all the diplomatic and economic options that could have brought about a far more satisfactory result than the weak deal he signed.

In exchange for superficial and easily reversed nuclear concessions, Obama and Kerry have normalized Iran and begun the process of unraveling sanctions. The alternative to this was an American foreign policy that was determined to make it clear to Iran that they would have to give up their nuclear program in the same manner than Libya was forced not do and they would not be given the chance to take the North Korean route to nuclear capability.

Instead of avoiding war, what Kerry has done is to set in motion a chain of events that may actually make armed conflict more likely. It’s not just that Israel must now come to terms with the fact that it has been abandoned and betrayed by its American ally and must consider whether it must strike Iran’s nuclear facilities before it is too late. Saudi Arabia must now also consider whether it has no choice but to buy a bomb (likely from Pakistan) to defend its existence against a deadly rival across the Persian Gulf. The Western stamp of approval on Iran will also embolden its Hezbollah terrorist auxiliaries and make it even less likely that Tehran’s ally Bashar Assad will be toppled in Syria.

By deciding that the U.S. was too weak to stand up to Iranian demands, Obama and Kerry have put the Islamist regime in a position where it can throw its weight around in the region without any fear of U.S. retaliation.

The choice here was not between war with Iran or a weak deal. It was between the U.S. using all its economic power and diplomatic influence to make sure that Iran had to give up its nuclear program and a policy of appeasement aimed at allowing the president to retreat from his promises. The Middle East and the rest of the world may wind up paying a terrible price for Obama’s false choices.

If President Obama can follow up the nuclear deal with Iran that he announced last night with another one in the next year that will dramatically roll back the Islamist regime’s nuclear progress achieved on his watch, then this event will be remembered as a diplomatic triumph that made the world safer.

In order for this to happen he will have to hope that Iran does not follow up this negotiation with more stalling tactics and settle for more limited agreements that do not do anything more than add a few weeks at most to the amount of time needed for them to “break out” and convert their nuclear stockpile into weapons-grade material. He will have to count on the Iranians not following the North Korean model of making nuclear deals only to break them once they are ready to put a nuclear site online. He will also have to hope that there are no secret underground sites in Iran that are not covered by the agreement though, as the New York Timesnoted this morning, even the CIA, Europe, and Israel believe such sites exist where uranium enrichment can continue unhindered. The president will also have to hope that the International Atomic Energy Agency will be able to effectively monitor activity inside Iran and detect cheating despite the fact that, as the Times also conceded, “Iran did not agree to all of the intrusive inspection regime” the IAEA had said was needed to ensure that the program is peaceful.

It must be conceded that the chances that this agreement will make it less likely that Iran will eventually reach its nuclear goal are not zero. It may be that Iran has truly abandoned its goal of a weapon, that it will negotiate in good faith and won’t cheat, and that there are no secret nuclear facilities in the country even though just about everyone in the intelligence world assumes there are. If so the world is safer, and many years from now, the president will go down in history as a great peacemaker worthy of a Nobel Prize. But since that scenario rests on a series of assumptions that range from highly unlikely to completely far-fetched, the only possible reaction to the deal from sober observers must be dismay. In exchange for measures that only slightly delay Iran’s nuclear progress that don’t come even close to putting them into compliance with United Nations resolutions on the nuclear question, the administration has begun the process of lifting sanctions on Iran. Even more seriously, it has, in effect, normalized a rogue regime that is still sponsoring international terrorism, waging war in Syria, and spewing international sanctions, while effectively taking any threat of the use force against Tehran off the table. All in all, this is a good day for the ayatollahs and bad one for U.S. interests and allies that are endangered by any result that leaves Iran’s nuclear capability intact.

If President Obama can follow up the nuclear deal with Iran that he announced last night with another one in the next year that will dramatically roll back the Islamist regime’s nuclear progress achieved on his watch, then this event will be remembered as a diplomatic triumph that made the world safer.

In order for this to happen he will have to hope that Iran does not follow up this negotiation with more stalling tactics and settle for more limited agreements that do not do anything more than add a few weeks at most to the amount of time needed for them to “break out” and convert their nuclear stockpile into weapons-grade material. He will have to count on the Iranians not following the North Korean model of making nuclear deals only to break them once they are ready to put a nuclear site online. He will also have to hope that there are no secret underground sites in Iran that are not covered by the agreement though, as the New York Timesnoted this morning, even the CIA, Europe, and Israel believe such sites exist where uranium enrichment can continue unhindered. The president will also have to hope that the International Atomic Energy Agency will be able to effectively monitor activity inside Iran and detect cheating despite the fact that, as the Times also conceded, “Iran did not agree to all of the intrusive inspection regime” the IAEA had said was needed to ensure that the program is peaceful.

It must be conceded that the chances that this agreement will make it less likely that Iran will eventually reach its nuclear goal are not zero. It may be that Iran has truly abandoned its goal of a weapon, that it will negotiate in good faith and won’t cheat, and that there are no secret nuclear facilities in the country even though just about everyone in the intelligence world assumes there are. If so the world is safer, and many years from now, the president will go down in history as a great peacemaker worthy of a Nobel Prize. But since that scenario rests on a series of assumptions that range from highly unlikely to completely far-fetched, the only possible reaction to the deal from sober observers must be dismay. In exchange for measures that only slightly delay Iran’s nuclear progress that don’t come even close to putting them into compliance with United Nations resolutions on the nuclear question, the administration has begun the process of lifting sanctions on Iran. Even more seriously, it has, in effect, normalized a rogue regime that is still sponsoring international terrorism, waging war in Syria, and spewing international sanctions, while effectively taking any threat of the use force against Tehran off the table. All in all, this is a good day for the ayatollahs and bad one for U.S. interests and allies that are endangered by any result that leaves Iran’s nuclear capability intact.

The details of the agreement are troublesome. Even while Iran gets a significant cash gift in terms of billions of dollars of unfrozen funds, its centrifuges will not be dismantled and it will be allowed to go on enriching uranium that can be converted to weapons-grade fuel. Its nuclear facilities will stay open, including the plutonium plant under construction. Its stockpile of enriched uranium will be diluted or converted into oxide, but that is nothing more than a storage option since the administration knows very well it could quickly be restored to its former state. Iran will have inspections, but they will be limited and there is little doubt that the IAEA, which has met every possible obstacle and obstruction to its work in Iran, will go on being stiffed no matter what the piece of paper obtained by Secretary of State Kerry says.

Far more important than even these points, Iran has effectively won its diplomatic objective of getting the West to recognize its “right” to enrich uranium. Though the U.S. is saying the two sides have agreed to disagree on this point, by signing a deal that allows Iran to go on enriching the question is now off the table in perpetuity. Iran’s nuclear program is effectively rendered legal by this deal. From now on, all disputes about enrichment will be considered as mere quibbling by the international forums that have heretofore accepted the West’s arguments about the question.

As for the vital sanctions relief, it is true the release of some of their frozen assets does not change the tough restrictions on doing business with Iran that are still in place. If we assume that the U.S. and its European allies will stick to their resolve to go on squeezing Iran, the small chance that President Obama’s initiative will truly lead to an end to their nuclear program would be enhanced. But that is an even shakier belief than any of the other suppositions that form the foundation of this policy.

As anyone who has ever closely looked at the way that the U.S. enforced sanctions against Iran, let alone its less-zealous European allies, the restrictions were always filled with holes. The New York Timesreported back in 2010 that the Treasury Department had already issued over 10,000 exemptions to the sanctions against Iran, thereby allowing Tehran billions more in business deals. Just as troubling, the Daily Beast reported earlier this month that as far back as June the U.S. had all but stopped enforcing a crucial aspect of the sanctions by largely halting the designation of violators of the rules. That more or less gave impunity to those doing business with Iran.

Does anyone want to seriously argue that now that the president has proclaimed that Iran has embraced diplomacy and that a path to resolving the nuclear question has been agreed to, the Treasury Department and the White House will actually ramp up enforcement? Does anyone seriously believe Kerry’s piece of paper will not act as a green light to the Europeans, who have been desperate to resume business with Iran, and cannot fail to interpret it as a sign they can ease up as well? And can anyone argue with a straight face that nations like China that have continued to do business with Iran will not only increase such efforts after the U.S. has declared that peace with Iran is at hand.

The president can pretend that he is still holding the ayatollah’s feet to the fire. But now that he has normalized a regime that goes on sponsoring terror, threatening Israel and spewing anti-Semitic hate, there will be no reassembling the coalition against Iran even if he eventually comes to the conclusion that he has been, like every other diplomatic partner of Iran, fooled by them.

The president’s campaign promise to end Iran’s nuclear program is now officially thrown on the scrap heap of history. He can only hope that when Iran does choose to take the final step to a weapon he will no longer be in the White House or that Americans will have been so diverted by other concerns that no one will care or seek to hold him accountable. But whether Tehran waits that long or not, this is a dark day for the cause of international peace and security. Iran has got its long-sought Western seal of approval for a nuclear program that enhances its power immeasurably. The rest of the region and those elsewhere who are not deceived by this agreement can only tremble.